It’s the classic story of supply and demand. Today’s demand in the job market is for
software engineers, the supply is, “very low, scarce,” says CEO and co-founder
of FullContact Bart Lorang.

FullContact is a software provider company in Denver.
“FullContact fixes people’s address books.
We like to say that if you have an address book, you have an address
book problem. We fix that,” says Lorang.

His software engineers do the fixing. But software engineers are like hens teeth,
finding them is hard enough, but keeping them is the challenge.

Lorang had an idea, the paid paid vacation. The idea came from a picture of Lorang
himself. He is sitting on a camel, in
Cairo on vacation, with majestic and ancient pyramids in the background. Bart Lorang, on his camel, is seen texting on
his smart phone.

Now employees at his business will “get paid while
they’re on vacation, but we also give them a vacation bonus for them to go on
vacation.” That bonus is $7,500.

FullContact engineer Robbie Jack took Lorang up on his
offer. “The biggest benefit is when you get back. You’re so much more invigorated, recharged.”

There are a few conditions, however. No smart phones, no iPads, no laptops…in
short, off the grid. “It was hard initially but once I got off the grid I was
very happy,” says Jack. “Absolutely fantastic.
I mean you get so used to waking up to emails in the morning,” says
fellow engineer Kyle Hansen.

Lorang is hoping to set his company apart in the tech
community in order to keep top talent.
And if it means paying his employees to take a really nice vacation,
well, we don’t hear any arms being twisted.